


thorn in the side

by SpiritedYoungLady



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Fever, Fever Dreams, Gen, Hurt Din Djarin, Hurt/Comfort, I mean so far it's really hurt/no comfort someone help this man, Infection, Mando says Trans Rights ((he doesn't literally but I am right here and now)), Nonbinary Original Character, OC bounty for plot reasons, Peli appears briefly for babysitting duties, Self-administered Medical Care, Whump, field medicine, good lord this man needs to take a first aid class, hurt mandalorian, medically inappropriate use of industrial alcohol, more OCs for plot reasons, tetanus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27607753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritedYoungLady/pseuds/SpiritedYoungLady
Summary: He was used to taking a beating. He wasn't used to getting stabbed.
Comments: 56
Kudos: 262
Collections: Genuary 2021





	1. thorn in the side

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a vaguely-defined time after Chapter 2 and before Chapter 8.
> 
> Featuring Mando being bad at first aid, dehydration, general post-fight pain, stab wounds, alarming lack of bacta patches, fever, infection, almost passing out, nausea, Mando worrying about the kid, spasms, and *checks notes* space tetanus.

Din trusted the beskar with his life, unlike his last set of armor. He took comfort in its symmetry, in the weight of it, in the fitted plates tailored to his movements. He was even proud of the shine, although that was not always a helpful thing in his line of work. He trusted the beskar with his life.

That was a mistake, he realized too late. Trusting anyone but himself was always a mistake.

The problem with beskar, you see, is that it has edges. It ends. He would never die of a headshot from a blaster but, oh, a knife in the gut was still a knife in the gut.

He'd taken a beating, which wasn't unusual, including a punch to the side that sent fire through his side. He came down from the adrenaline rush quickly, which also wasn't unusual. But the lingering finger of pain that twisted right below where his rib cage ended -- that was notable. _Bad_ notable.

He was alone in the Razor Crest -- he'd left the kid outside with Peli. The little thing was exhausted, falling asleep on his shoulder on the return trip. Din didn't entirely trust Peli, but she adored the kid, which was enough right now. As he set the helmet down on his rack, he caught a glimpse of his face. A human face -- he forgot about that, sometimes -- dark beneath the eyes, bruised along the cheekbone from when the muscle for a minor crime boss slammed him into the ground earlier that day. The helmet was built to diffuse force but the helmet had shifted, slamming the cheek ridge into his own cheekbone. Din ran a finger, still gloved, along the bruise. No one would notice, at least. No one would ask questions.

His side, though. He might get questions about that. A hole in the side was a bad look for a contract worker.

He tugged off the gloves, removed his armored gauntlets, and gingerly peeled off the flack jacket. Years ago, Din made peace with the dull, all-encompassing pain that lingers after a beating. The stabbing pain in his side, the warm blood -- he hated that. It meant something had gone wrong.

He'd been stabbed before, of course, usually not deep thanks to the tough fabric he wore beneath the beskar. This was why he hadn't brought this kid back to Razor Crest. Best not to ignore this. 

Din peeling off everything until he was naked from the waist up, grunting as he tugged fabric caked with blood that clung to the wound. They'd gotten him with a crooked dirk of some kind -- in and out, ragged and deep. On the surface, the opening was deceptively small, if flayed around the edges. Dried blood blossomed around it like a deadly flower.

He took a slow sip of water. When had he last eaten? That morning? The night before? He sipped again, realizing that, behind the pain of his side, his head ached, too.

Din drained the water pouch, sat on the edge of the rack, and unrolled the much-used medpac. Damn. No bacta patches. An irrigation bulb, a handful of small bandages, some wound closures.

He wished he understood the kid's magic powers. The gash on his arm that the kid had healed hadn't even left a scar. But the kid couldn't talk, didn't seem to have a great grasp on what situations were actually dangerous, and passed out every time he used the powers. Din was vaguely worried that the kid might toss an attacker across the room or knit a broken bone together and never wake up again. Which, of course, would actually solve several of his problems. Even so, he thought of failing the foundling made him ill.

Or maybe that was just the pain, the headache, and the dehydration.

Wincing, Din pulled the sides of the wound apart and slid the bulb a centimeter into the wound. The cleansing liquid wasn't bacta, but it wasn't nothing. Pink rivulets rushed back out in time with his breathing. He caught the liquid with a grease rag before it hit his cot. That was pointless -- it wasn't like he hadn't bled on the cot before. He'd do it again, too, probably. He tossed the rag back in the repair bin then fumbled for the wound closures. The wound gaped at the edges, which was fine. As long as it wasn't gaping in the middle, he was happy. He slapped a too-small bandage over top of the closures. 

Din stood, the familiar pain that follows fights rushing through stiff muscles. The adhesive bandage pulled away at the edge. Din pushed it back in place with a finger, running his other hand through his hair. He'd eat something, then go get the kid back, then they'd make themselves scarce and sleep this off.

He'd be fine. _They'd_ be fine. Stab wound or not, that was all that mattered.


	2. thorn in the side, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in space, Din's wound becomes infected.
> 
> Written in the "take the signs and symptoms of infection and scramble them up until it sparks joy" school of whump.
> 
> Ft. Mando in pain, worrying about the kid, nearly passing out, nauseated, sweating, feverish, and on the brink of making even more poor self-care choices. Seriously, someone send this man to a WFA class.
> 
> CW for a brief instance of unreality involving insect-related body horror.

The rough fabric of the stick-patch he'd repaired his flight suit with rubbed uncomfortably on the wound as Din walked back to collect the child.

The kid was still sleeping, one ear tucked into the bundle of cloth Peli had swaddled him in.

"Thank you," Din said, taking the child from her. "We'd better get going."

Peli raised her eyebrows, a clear indication that she expected payment.

Din shook his head. "We both know you overcharged me on the repairs. Call this even."

Peli made a broad gesture. "Hey, a woman's gotta make a living!" She reached out and rubbed a smudge of grease off of the child's forehead, then leaned in. "You behave now, you hear?"

The child responded with a sleepy coo. Just for a moment, the tension in Din's chest eased its grip.

##

Din put the child to bed, double-checking that the door to his cabin latched, then settled into the pilot's seat. Behind the beskar, his temples pounded. He kept his helmet on -- force of habit, on the one hand, but he always felt safer flying with it.

The force necessary to leave Tattooine's gravity pressed his head firm against the headrest. That was normal -- the accompanying swell of nausea was not. Din closed his eyes briefly, trusting the ship's autopilot, and forced a deep breath.

In space the nausea subsided a bit. He was probably tired, that was all. A bit dehydrated, maybe, and stressed from the wound. Din set the coordinates for an icy, unoccupied moon circling an icy, unoccupied planet. Best to lay low for a few days. The kid clearly needed rest after his last spurt of magic, and, although Din hated to admit it, he did, too.

He eased back in the chair and closed his eyes.

Early on in his career Din had adopted the bounty hunter's sleep habits: sleep when you can, where you can, and wake quickly with your finger on the trigger. Din never slept for long these days. He dreamed rarely.

But today, Din fell into a bright and savage theater of nightmares. The images slid past him before his dream-self could clutch at a narrative:  
the child in danger,  
Cara slamming a blaster under his chin,  
the lurch of jetpack failure,  
the child lying beneath an imperial torture droid, unmoving.

In the Razor Crest Din stood, swayed, removed his helmet. His head dissolved into a seething pile of insects, and he screamed.

The sound of his own scream shook Din back to reality, properly awake this time. Nausea poured over him as he lowered himself to the floor of the cockpit. Sweat ran along the rim of his helmet as he eased it off with trembling fingers. His flight suit, too, was soaked through with sweat. He lay there on the cockpit floor, chest heaving. The beskar -- his protection, his birthright, his hard-won prize -- lay oppressive against his rib cage.

He hadn't felt like this since he was a foundling and an off-world fever had ravaged his clan. And now here he was with his own foundling in tow but in no state to care for it, a sudden lurch away from vomiting or blacking out. He tried to breathe deeply as he sorted back through the day, trying to place his current state in context.

With every quaking breath, the pain in his side blossomed brightly.

Of course. The wound was infected. This was his fault. If he'd been quicker to kill his attacker or deflected the blow he wouldn't be here, feverish on the floor. If he'd restocked the medpac when he'd the chance, the bacta would already have knit his side back together. But he had been neither fast or prepared. Instead, he'd gone and gotten himself stabbed then immediately skipped off into deep space, hundreds of light-years from anyone but the kid.

The kid.

Din rolled onto his good side and eased himself to hands and knees, trying to suppress the fire rippling through his side. He'd had worse, he told himself; he'd pull through. (This pep talk rang hollow -- Din couldn't actually think of a time when wounds and fever and exhaustion had all swamped him at once like this.)

Leaning against the cockpit chair for support he stripped to his undergarments. He sipped water, forced himself nibble at the corner of a protein cube, then reached for the medpac. There was the dingy gauze, the remaining wound closures, the empty irrigation bulb. He dug into the outside pockets and found a hypo with a rubbed-off label -- either adrenaline or an antibiotic, a 50/50 chance in each direction.

Din made his way back to repairs shelf, leaning bare skin against cool bulkheads as he moved down the hall. Just like he'd thought, there was half a canister left of industrial alcohol. His hands shook as he refilled the irrigation bulb, sending alcohol splashing against the metal floor.

This was going to hurt like hell.


	3. thorn in the side, part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 of thorn in the side. 
> 
> Ft. questionable use of industrial alcohol, as promised.
> 
> Also: I have discovered a list of Mando'a profanity.

He knelt on the floor of the hall with the irrigation bulb clutched in his right hand, uncovering the wound with the left. When he removed the last closure, a bloody rivulet trickled down his side.

Din set his jaw and nestled the tip of the bulb into the swollen, tender hole below his ribs. Without allowing himself think about what came next, he squeezed.

The pain was worse than the knife, worse than the initial treatment, worse than the throbbing pressure from a few minutes before. Despite himself, Din screamed. The bulb tumbled to the floor, spilling alcohol around his knees, but he barely noticed. White crept around the edges of Din's vision. He fumbled for a handhold and let his forehead fall against the bulkhead, breathing hard.

Eventually, the fog cleared and the pain moved from firey to throbbing. Din pushed a mostly-clean grease rag against the wound and hauled himself off the floor. With halting steps he made his way back to the cockpit.

A light blinked on the dash: two minutes left until arrival. He eased himself back into the pilot's seat. Deep breath, a swig of water. Deep breath, a bite of protein.

They lurched out hyperspace with a shudder. Din kept his hands on the controls, scanning the instruments and surroundings for signs of life but, like he'd hoped, there was no one here. It was just him, the kid, and the Razor Crest.

He put the ship into orbit around the icy moon, aware in a detached way of just how deep his exhaustion ran. When he was satisfied they were safe, he fingered the hypo. Ah, _rangir_. It couldn't hurt, could it? A little adrenaline wouldn't kill him, but an antibiotic, if that's what it was, might save his life. He hoped, as he applied the hypospray behind his ear, that he wouldn't regret this.

Din eyed the flight suit and beskar, but he couldn't bear the thought of putting them back on right now. He wasn't confident he could even put his arm through a sleeve without passing out. Instead, he settled the helmet back onto his damp hair. Either the helmet stayed on or he stayed out here, and the confines of his cot sounded like the best accommodations in the galaxy right now. Besides, he needed to keep an eye on the kid. He scooped up his weapons and the rest of the protein cube. He looked absurd with just the helmet on, sure, but no one who knew enough Basic to voice an opinion was going to see him.

When he opened the hatch to his cabin, the child raised a tiny hand and cooed.

"Hey, there," Din said, brushing his fingers against the kid's ear. He tucked the remaining protein cube into the converted gear hammock next to the kid. "Here. Yeah, I know you're hungry. Sorry it's not wriggling."

The kid squinted suspiciously at the pink gelatin, gave it a tap and watched it quiver. Din crawled in beneath him, letting the hatch fall shut. He lay on his back, feeling blood or maybe alcohol drip from the uncovered wound.

As he lay there, breathing deeply and trying to convince his mind it was safe enough to sleep, he realized his heart seemed to be pounding a normal amount. That meant the hypo had indeed been an antibiotic, _not_ adrenaline.

 _Finally_ , he thought as he drifted to sleep. One thing gone right this _osik'la_ day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the man finally catches a break. Will it last? Or will this poor man's osik'la day continue? I genuinely can't tell ya. We'll all find out together when I get there, I guess.
> 
> Seriously though, thanks for the love! So glad you've enjoyed this. Whether or not I continue this particular train of whump, I /will/ be returning to make Din Djarin suffer another day.


	4. thorn in the side, part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He felt better after a few hours rest.
> 
> Of course, it wouldn't last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, thank you for the comments and interest in where this is going! It's, uh, going towards whump. Probably not much else, honestly, but if that's the content you're here for, I'm glad to have you along for the ride. At least two more chapters of Din dealing with the dirty, grimy stab wound that just. won't. give him. a break.

When he woke a few hours later Din was shivering and sticky. His side still hurt ferociously but at the twenty-four-hour mark, the pain was becoming familiar.

He was exhausted, weaker than he'd felt in several years, and his head throbbed in response to every heartbeat. It was saying something, then, that he somehow felt galaxies better than when he'd crawled into his bunk the night before. He didn't want to think about the state he'd be in if chance had tossed him the adrenaline hypo instead of the antibiotic.

The kid was still asleep, little mouth hanging half-open. Good. He'd had enough trouble keeping himself alive these past few hours.

Out in the main hall of the Razor Crest Din locked the hatch to his cabin and slipped off the helmet. He allowed himself another glance in the grease-flecked mirror. The bruise on his cheek was threatening to turn a murky yellow. 

Not that it mattered.

He yawned, then splashed water on his face. After a brief moment's consideration -- he usually left hygiene for planetside to save on water -- he wet a rag and began wiping himself down. The chill of the rough rag against the back of his neck dampened the headache just enough to be grateful for.

When he finished his impromptu bath, Din eyed the irrigation bulb -- it had rolled into a corner when he'd dropped it the night before. He sighed and refilled it, this time managing to only splash a few drops of alcohol on Razor Crest's deck.

He almost didn't follow through. He knew exactly how it would burn: the singe of external pain at first, then a lull, then those deep fingers of fire licking his kidneys.

Din thought about how he'd been a fraction of his usual competent self just a few hours ago. He thought about the kid, still sleeping. He glanced at the empty antibiotic hypo -- the last.

He braced himself, touched the tip of the bulb to the wound, and squeezed.

If anything, it was worse the second time.

When his head cleared he lay a patch of dingy gauze from the mostly-empty medkit over the wound, affixing it with tape meant for patching pipes. With a bandage in place, the clothes went on easier this time. As each piece of beskar settled into place he felt less and less like a wounded pup, more like a Mandalorian with a foundling and a ship and duties to attend to.

Din took one last sip of water and ran his fingers through his hair, then settled the helmet into its proper place.

In the cockpit an indicator light blinked, accompanied by a wailing alarm. The Razor Crest lurched suddenly to port, shuddered, dipped sharply forward. Uncertain cooing drifted from Din's cabin.

 _Damn_. If it wasn't him falling apart, it was his ship.

He scooped up the kid on the way to the cockpit. The kid, who seemed to have decided all this flashing and beeping was great fun, pushed a green hand against Din's helmet and giggled.

Still holding the kid Din slid into the pilot's seat and switched off autopilot. The kid reached a little hand for the "right engine reverse" button, which happened to be flashing an enticing red. "Nope," Din said, shifting the kid to his other knee. "Not that one." Good -- the kid was feeling better, too. If he could just get the Razor Crest into a friendly port for some repairs on the down-low, that would be all three of them back in fighting spirit.

His foundling, his ship, and himself, all together and in one piece. He'd achieve it one day, he thought, and he'd really savor the moment when it came. Who knew how long luck like _that_ would last? 

## 

Din was in Bespin's underbelly finishing up a small job in exchange for maintenance when the first spasms hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surely they have tetanus shots in a Galaxy Far, Far Away, right?
> 
> ....right?


	5. thorn in the side, part 5

"If you come quietly, it's easier for both of us."

He was staring down a Ugnaught -- name of Rix Taraay, apparently -- who'd somehow ended up on the wrong refueling station with a shipment of tibanna that didn't belong to him. Clerical error, he'd insisted to Din. Just a mixed-up delivery.

Din's current employer, the owner of a small ship repair yard, begged to differ.

Din stared at Taraay, waiting for him to choose between fighting or surrender. Taraay stared right back, just enough terror in his eyes that Din was afraid he'd do something stupid. Which wouldn't really be a problem, of course -- he could take an Ugnaught down in less time than it takes to sneeze. He was just hoping for a quick job, for once. To get back to the kid.

Taraay seemed to be having difficulty choosing. Din, tired of the wait, raised his vibrostaff and began to speak.

What he was going to say was, "Last chance to live through this." He found, however, that he couldn't say anything. Nothing that sounded like Basic, anyway. His mouth was frozen half-open, aching, his own muscles locking his jaw in place.

The helmet may have prevented Taraay from seeing Din's face but it couldn't stop him from watching the odds tip back in his favor. In what he probably thought was a subtle manner, the Ugnaught reached for a line of tibanna.

Din quelled panic, re-focused. Bringing a bounty in didn't require talking. Neither did getting paid. This was a nightmarish problem, but it was the sort of problem that could wait.

Din whipped the vibrostaff around, sending the Ugnaught sprawling to the floor. At least part of his body still listened to him.

You wouldn't even call that a fight, but his pulse pounded in his temple. Din allowed himself a moment to breathe, distantly noting the beginnings of a headache. Then he collected Taraay's body (still breathing) and dragged him between stacks of carbonite-stabilized tibanna and into the depths of the ship.

After securing the bounty to a shelf in the storage room behind the cockpit, Din lowered himself into the pilot's seat and set a course back for Chinook station. Whatever was happening to him, he just hoped it wouldn't get worse.

Had he been poisoned? Had his enemies followed him to Bespin? Was this some new form of the kid's magic, backfiring on him somehow? Maybe the _kid_ had enemies on the planet. He was just making a mental note to look up the symptoms of tibanna poisoning when a wave of unease poured over him.

Din had the good sense to lock the ship's autopilot on before the spasm hit.

His back was thrown into an arch, his arms grasping at nothing, the muscles in his neck and face tensing so hard it felt as if they might pull away from his bones. He felt a rip in the almost-healed wound beneath his ribs. It was all the helplessness and tension of electrocution but there wasn't a cause to this. He didn't know when it would end.

Din took stock. He could move his arms below the elbows, more or less, but not with any degree of finesse. Grasping -- a gun, the controls, a flash detonator -- just wasn't going to happen. He could kick, maybe, but that didn't help much since the screaming muscles of his arched back meant he couldn't stand.

Swearing, then a grunt sounded from the compartment behind him. Something crashed to the deck, followed by victorious crowing. The bounty was awake. He had to be coming this way, and Din had to assume he'd armed himself.

Din couldn't handle a weapon. Fine. All it would take was that precise, practiced flick of the wrist to activate the whistling birds. The ship would fly itself right to Chinook station, then he'd press the automated distress button. It'd be a bumpy landing but he'd be back among allies, hopefully allies with a whole tank of bacta. Back near the kid. _Haran_ , he hoped paying that eager Twi'lek teenager to do homework in the Razor Crest while keeping an eye on his foundling had been the right choice.

Just one problem -- this plan, his only plan, hinged on activating the whistling birds. But no matter how intensely he focused on his arms, how desperately he willed his body to help him survive this, he was rewarded with nothing.

Behind him, the cockpit door slid open.

"Well," Taaray said, sounding smug, "this is a new one."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've already had "stylized infection speedrun for fun and whump", now it's time for the sequel, "stylized tetanus speedrun for fun and whump"!
> 
> EDIT: ahHA, I forgot an important factor here: this is a galaxy far, far away, and I can make people get whatever fun sort of infection I want.
> 
> Thanks for being here! Glad folks seem to be enjoying this. I've bumped it back to seven chapters because I don't want to rush the ending.


	6. thorn in the side, part 6

The Ugnaught's critical mistake was pushing that blaster nozzle under the Mandalorian's helmet. At the back of the neck, in the soft, unprotected territory by his kidneys -- the thief might have ended Din's career right there. But a blaster kissing his chin was a threat not only to his life but to The Way, putting him just a casual movement away from an unmasking.

He faced threats to his life every day. He had bested every single one of them, most of them without breaking stride. He was numb to them. Threats to The Way? Those struck a nerve, a nerve that turned Din from a dangerous man into a desperate one. 

If he died, he died helmet on. He died Mandalorian.

He wasn't going to die spasming in a petty fraudster's ship in the great cloud of Bespin because a bounty put a blaster bolt through his skull.

With great effort but as suddenly as he could manage, Din drew his leg up into Taaray and threw himself backward off of the chair. Part of him had hoped that the force of the fall would shake him out of this episode. No such luck -- he lay there, muscles still resisting his will, body frozen in an unnatural arch. Taaray yelped and fired, sending a harmless bolt against the beskar. He tumbled backward, crashing into the control panel before landing just inches away from where Din lay.

Din still didn't have the dexterity to deploy the whistling birds by himself. But now, laying on the ground, he found that a strategic kick and an immense effort allowed him the leverage his arm into the floor of the cockpit, which gave him just the support he needed. The Ugnaught hadn't even stumbled to his feet when Din finally managed to deploy the whistling birds.

Too bad, he thought as his bounty collapsed unceremoniously. His employer had wanted this one back alive, if possible. But only those with a death wish attacked a bounty hunter.

He took a moment, now that he wasn't in immediate danger, to consider his position. The spasms had come on strong and sudden but they didn't seem to be worsening. His head hurt -- everything hurt, actually -- but he didn't feel any creeping sense of unease or deep-brewing nausea. He wasn't seeing white around his vision. Maybe it wasn't poison, then. His breaths were short and shallow breaths since those were the only sort he could manage, but at least he could breathe.

And at least the ship was still on course Chinook station. Of course, he'd still have to manage to hit the distress signal or the ship's overzealous auto-pilot would crash right into the station, probably killing him and everyone on the station. Including the kid.

He'd tried so hard not to drag the kid into this job. Look where that had gotten him: hurtling across Bespin in a stranger's ship with a cooling body for a copilot, unable to even speak, summoning all his strength to perform the simple action of pushing a button.

 _Shabuir_. Would this never end?

Din figured that only five or so minutes had passed since the spasms started, which was also when he'd started the autopilot. That meant he had about twenty minutes before Chinook station was in range. He could reach the distress signal from the floor if he could just pull himself up.

He gave himself five minutes, trying to relax, trying to think. Maybe this would pass, and he could land the ship himself.

Whatever had gripped him didn't pass in five minutes, but it did relax its grip on the muscles of his arms and his face. This proved to be enough to swing an arm up over the pilot's seat. He slumped against the chair, grateful that he didn't have to hold his own weight. After another short rest and a few unsuccessful tries he managed to swing his other arm up to the control panel and letting it fall somewhere in the vicinity of the distress signal.

Din had never been so relieved to hear the needy wailing of alarms fill a ship. As long as the attendants at Chinook were monitoring the emergency channel, this was out of his hands.

He allowed himself to fall back to the floor. He'd done the job. He'd gotten his ship repaired. He'd kept the kid safe. What ever the kriff was happening to him, at least he'd get to live long enough to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> < < space tetanus > > continues to be whatever I wish it to be for plot reasons; thanks for understanding. :P great licence also taken with space ships.
> 
> Thanks for being here as we meander our way to a conclusion! Your comments and kudos mean so much!


	7. thorn in the side, part 7

Even with assistance, it was a rough landing.

Din had figured someone would come in looking for him after that dramatic landing, especially with radio silence from the coms. He hadn't considered that they'd be expecting Taaray, not him.

A trio of shop techs who looked like they bench pressed speeders for fun burst in, blasters raised.

"Come out with your hands on your head," one of them barked. "Kick your weapons to us."

Din made as much noise as he could manage. While it wasn't enough, it was enough to draw the muscle to the cockpit. Good thing he was wearing beskar. These people seemed like they'd light up a womp rat for sneezing.

One of the three, a woman with pearly tusks, soft blue skin, and biceps as big as her head, lowered her blaster. "Damn, is that -- I think that's the Mandalorian."

The human to her right, who wore their hair close-cropped and bore a finger-wide scar on their face, took a cautious step forward. "Kriff, he got Taaray." They leaned in. "Looks like Taaray might have gotten him, too." They looked like they were about to nudge him with a booted foot, like a bit of roadkill to be shoved into the gutter.

Din had had enough indignities today. There were more to come, he was sure, but he wasn't going to be _nudged_. He swung his arm around as much as he could manage and tried to say something that was intended to be "help me up".

The one with the scar knelt by him, reached for the helmet.

Din managed to say "no!" loud and clear enough that his voice echoed through the ship. The effort made it feel like his jaw had cracked in two and send his lungs into quick, panting breath, but he'd gotten the point across.

"You're hurt. We're only trying to help."

The tusked woman sharply looked up from Taaray's body. "How about we don't question the Mandalorian, okay?" She turned to Din. "Listen, we'll take Taaray's body, but this --" she gestured at his prone form "--is above our pay grade. We'll send for a med droid and a hover gurney."

Din wouldn't let droids fix his ship and he sure as _haran_ wasn't in the habit of letting them patch him up. This time around, it didn't look like he had much of a choice.

By the time a hover gurney, flanked by two med droids, arrived, the spasm in his jaw had relaxed enough that he could mumble passable basic.

"Whatever you do, the helmet stays on," he said. "Or I come back and I kill everyone here."

"We are droids, sir," said the med droid that had him by the arms, its delivery perfect, pre-programmed bedside manner. "We cannot be killed."

They lay a blanket over him. This was, of course, absurd, but it did make him look less like a blinking sign that said, "FREE BESKAR! COME AND TAKE IT," which was something.

Why they had a fully-functioning bacta tank on a backwater refueling station he didn't know. Black market reasons, probably. The sort of thing you gave gracious thanks for and never asked questions about.

He'd gotten the helmet message across loud and clear, and so he tried his best to give in and let them do whatever needed to be done to save his life. This involved stripping him to his microgarments, dosing him with a sedative, strapping a whole network of sensors on, and dumping him into a tank of bacta, his helmet still firmly in place. It'd be a pain to clean later, but that was a small price to pay for survival.

Would they charge him for this? he wondered as the sedative pulled him towards sleep. He hoped not. He needed another debt like he needed another knife in the side.

##

He woke on a simple bed in a dingy room in his helmet and flight suit.

The _beskar_.

He sat up with a start.

The _kid_.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Hi, uh, Mister Mando?" A nervous cough. "Mister Mandolorian?"

 _The Twi'lek kid._ He smiled. She'd have the child. _Shab_ , she'd had the child for a whole day, maybe more. Of course she'd be here, trying to return him.

"Come in," he called. (It was so easy again, talking. He'd always taken it for granted.)

She slipped inside, barely opening the door and closing it immediately behind her. The child in her arms cooed.

"How was he?" Din didn't quite trust himself to stand, so he let her bring the foundling over. The child reached for him with a questioning expression. Din felt as if something in his chest had just clicked into place.

"Adorable," she said, and handed him to Din. "He ate a lot, though. Does he always eat so much?"

"Sounds about right," Din said. "Thank you. And sorry for the delay." He stood, swayed, sat back down. The child cooed a question. He gently stroked its ear in response. "I, uh, have credits back on the Razor Crest."

The girl shrugged. "Hey, no rush! I'm not going anywhere. I'm sure you're not in hurry. Heard you had some sort of crazy systemic infection and a big old hole in your side." Damn, she'd heard that? He hoped that hadn't gotten off of Bespin. Unless the rumor was that he'd died -- that might help him out, actually.

The girl, unaware of the delicate state of his reputation, shook her head, clearly impressed. "What did Taaray do to you?"

"Nothing. He miscalculated and died quickly."

The girl looked taken aback. He quickly moved on. "All of...this....was my last job catching up to me."

The girl swore, threw a guilty glance at the kid. "Sorry. Some job, I guess."

"Luck of the draw. Some are worse than others."

"Well!" She reached over to stroke the child's cheek. "At least it's over, right?"

"Right," Din echoed as she left. He leaned against the pillows. The small, warm weight of the child leaned against his side. "At least it's over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really tough story for me to wrap up, but the lil green baby's back with his dad and that's all that really matters. :)
> 
> Please do not ask me how the bacta breathing apparatus works with a helmet. I simply Do Not Know.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and for your kudos, comments, and bookmarks! That all means so much to me, especially since this is the first Mando whump I've written (and the first multi-chapter fic I've ever written).


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